Glenview Returns To Affordable Housing Discussion

State Requires Communities To Have At Least 10% Affordable Housing, Or A Plan To Get There, Glenview Is At 7.4%

By Tom Robb, May 13, 2015, 5:00 pm

The issue of affordable housing in Glenview was back before village trustees earlier this month.

A state law requires that all communities, with less than 10% of its housing stock determined to be considered affordable, must offer a plan to get their municipality to that point.

A plan was given first approval by trustees at their May 5 village board meeting. It is expected to be on the Tuesday, May 19 village board consent agenda.

State officials notified Glenview the village had fallen to an affordable housing stock of just 7.4% in December 2013 from U.S. Census data, which has a two-year publishing lag from when it was collected in 2010. The village was given 18 months to come up with a plan. That time expires June 2, 2015.

A complex equation is used to determine how many affordable housing units there are, using the number of available units both for rent and for sale, area median incomes (AMI) for the metropolitan Chicago area, rental rates and mortgage payments based on a percentage of AMI.

Eight tools trustees could be open to approving for any given development were presented by village staffers, but only four were recommended by staffers based on what village officials had approved in the past.

Glenview is home to 508 rental units at or less than $916 per month and 293 owner occupied units with mortgage payments of $2,100 or less for a total of 683 affordable units. Glenview needs 410 more affordable units to comply with the 10% state requirement, village staffers told trustees.

Those recommendations would not be automatic tools for redevelopment, but would need to be approved for any given development seeking them by village trustees on an individual basis.

Those four recommended tools were: the use of planned unit development (PUD) ordinances encouraging affordable housing that could include bonuses, waiving of development fees for affordable housing developments, municipal tax abatements and cooperation with developers finding other state and federal funding.

Village officials said the plan must include four of the eight available tools to be accepted by the state.

Options that were not considered include creating a community trust that would allocate funds for affordable housing in the village, inclusionary zoning that would mandate certain levels of affordable housing in new developments, expedited permitting for developments with affordable housing and a tear down tax related to funding a community trust.

In past years, village officials said they qualified as achieving the 10% benchmark, but said state law changed in 2013 changing that equation and lowering Glenview to 7.4%.

Village Trustee Scott Britton, a vocal advocate for more affordable housing, said he understood the time sensitive nature of setting this policy, but suggested the ordinance could later be amended as the village works on its new long term comprehensive plan, pushing the level from 10 to 15% affordable housing at a later date. Britton also said all eight options should be considered.

Village President Jim Patterson said perhaps a workshop could be held separate from working it into the comprehensive plan.

Village Manager Todd Hileman pushed back on that idea saying developments are individual things to be considered on a case-by-case basis, unless something like a special zoning district were established.

Earlier this year village trustees debated the Cook County housing voucher program.

In 2013, a county ordinance mandated all landlords accept housing vouchers.

Glenview trustees enacted a fair housing ordinance exempting landlords from that county requirement just before the law would have gone into effect to keep the “status quo.”

But earlier this year they reversed that policy and put the village’s fair housing ordinance in line with county ordinances.